I've already written about how difficult it was for me to open up about our struggle with infertility. But once God brought me to a place of humility and complete dependence upon Him, then we opened up, began sharing our story, and have been blessed by God through it. Below are just some of the blessings we've experienced since opening up about our infertility. There have been many things God has taught us, ways he has encouraged us, and areas he's grown us through our suffering—and specifically as we've shared it with others—but here are 7 specific ways in which God has worked good things in our lives through our infertility:
1. Humility
I've alluded to this before: accepting the reality of our infertility was a large slice of humble pie for me. Opening up about it, however, was like eating the whole pie! But God, being perfect and wise, knew that I needed that pie (about the only kind of pie I need, if you ask my bathroom scale!). But as Scripture shows us, humility is a grace of God working in our lives. 1 Peter 5:5-7 reads, "...'God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.' Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you." Humility drives me to my knees, my proper place before my sovereign Creator, and it positions me for prayer. More on this in a moment.
2. Dependence
Walking comes pretty naturally to me on most days. I don't have to think about it, worry about it, or even pray about it. I just do it. But Paige has an 90-something-year-old uncle who has bad knees. Just to get up out of his recliner he has to almost pysch himself up for it. Once he gets his walker in position in front of him, he takes a bounce in his chair and uses his arms to help propel him to his feet. Walking doesn't come as naturally to him anymore. He's more dependent now to do what most people do without thinking about it. This is how we feel with childbearing. Something like 85-90% of childbearing-age couples don't have to put much effort into conceiving. It comes quite naturally to them, and they probably don't feel the sense of dependence upon anyone outside of the two of them to get pregnant. Unlike most couples, Paige and I have felt a dependence every month for the past 5 years now. And ultimately, this is good. Like we need humility, we likewise need to experience our dependence upon God, otherwise we would not have experienced the comfort we have found through talking to God in prayer.
3. Prayer
We have found much confidence in the Lord knowing that the prayers of a righteous man have great power (James 5:16). This isn't a magic formula; it's the simple process of speaking our thoughts to God knowing that He hears us because of Christ our Intercessor and answers us according to His perfect will. A. W. Pink defined prayer as “the way and means God has appointed for the communication of the blessings of His goodness to His people.” So while Paige and I pray and wait, we realize that even now—through our suffering, waiting, and our prayers to Him—God is working sanctifyingly in our hearts. This has proved to be such a helpful perspective for us. What's more, prayer itself comforts our hearts when we pray. The Puritan Thomas Watson once described prayer as "the dispeller of sorrow: By venting the grief it eases the heart." We're told in 1 Samuel 1:18 that Hannah poured out her heart before God in prayer and "was no longer sad." Truly, prayer is a means of God’s grace to us through which He “tinkers” with our hearts and conforms us more to the image of His Son. Thus while we continue waiting His blessing of children, we persevere in prayer with thankful hearts for all He has already graciously provided us. (An entire series of blogposts could—and probably should—be written on the importance of prayer. But maybe another time...)
4. Encouragement
I was at a national church conference a couple years ago when a well-known and much-respected pastor from across the country found me during a break. As he put his big arm around me, and proceeded to inform me that he and his wife had been praying for us, and specifically that God would grant our desire for children. Oh man, I was almost overcome with emotion right there! Here was a long time friend of my dad's, a man I had known for some time but hadn't personally told about our struggle. Nevertheless, he had heard about us, and he and his wife had been praying for us. What a blessed encouragement this was to our hearts! Similarly, Paige has experienced a number of instances when someone went out of their way to provide encouragement. In fact, the more we have opened up about our struggles the more God has encouraged us through prayers, comments, letters, cards, emails, texts, Facebook messages, and hugs. All of these have been an amazing comfort to us in our grief.
5. Resources
A couple years into our struggle with infertility, Paige had a coworker who stepped into her office one afternoon and almost out of the blue mentioned that he and his wife were seeing a fertility specialist. (I guess some people have a different definition of "casual conversation" than I do. But I digress...) What came out of that conversation was the contact name and number of a doctor who Paige and I would soon go visit. And the more we have opened up about our infertility—to both fellow believers as well as unbelievers—God has introduced us to a variety of resources such as doctor referrals, specialist and procedural recommendations, and just helpful food for thought as we walk through this struggle.
6. Ministry
Since opening up more about our difficult situation, we've come to realize just how many people have or are currently struggling in the same way. Some of these couples are close friends of ours who we see regularly, yet until we began talking about our infertility, we had no idea they were also struggling to get pregnant. This has astounded us on more than a few occasions. Just in our small church we have at least four or five couples who have been unable to have children and others who have had miscarriages. These are difficult providences in life that give us opportunities to minister to each other through prayer, conversation, and true Christian fellowship centered around the Word of God.
7. Empathy
Beyond infertility, we've also been better able to empathize with those who are struggling in many other ways. Suffering is suffering. We all suffer somehow. The goal isn't to try to compare or equate our suffering with anyone else's, but simply to acknowledge the reality of suffering in life and show genuine care and Christ-like compassion to others when they suffer. Empathy is walking side-by-side with someone through their hurt or grief. One man at our church recently referred to those who are struggling with any variety of pains—infertility, divorce, the death of a spouse, desiring to be married, stuck in a difficult financial situation, etc.—as the "disenfranchised" members of the church family. These are folks for whom life is difficult, at least right now. They feel hard-pressed on every side. And our role as brothers and sisters with other "disenfranchised" members of the body is to get close to them, to show them our love and commitment to them. Why? Because of the love that God has shown us through Christ.
And this is where all of our suffering comes back to the gospel of Christ. The reason we can endure any kind of suffering is by the grace of God as demonstrated to us by what Christ did on the cross on our behalf. Through Christ, we have real hope and comfort in the midst of life's difficult days. And so as we have opened up more and more about our struggles with infertility, we have seen Christ working more and more in and through our lives. May He be glorified in our suffering.
~David
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